So. Many years ago, I did a series of wee drawings of a knight chasing a dragon through the alphabet. I had good reasons, let us not discuss what they were because I don’t recall. I do love early Christian and Medieval illuminations, though. For anyone not familiar with the term, it’s the doodles around the edges of the books the monks used to copy out. Some of them are absolutely mental; the Toast had a series about it, someone has thoughtfully collected some of it here. Although apparently it’s all allegory and therefore quite possibly some sort of pithy political commentary whose point has been lost to the ages.

So, first to admit, my wee alphabet was quite tame by comparison with all that. However, in order to retroactively justify the amount of time I spent on it*, now it’s been dragged back into the light of day and tarted up. And lo, by the power of modern technology, it is now available on mugs and T-shirts and cards and bags (and, apparently, clocks. I’m just gonna go with it. You never know if someone might be jonesing for such a thing, it’s a funny old world).

(Pictured above: the sort of scene that only excites the sort of people who post on Allotment Life, so apologies for the niche interest.)

Spring took its sweet time about it, too. Truly, we have had a winter like the ones child-me thought were “supposed” to happen, where the ground was covered with snow more often than not, and every time I ran outside with a spade I was beaten back into the house by a big blast of hail from one of a number of ‘Beasts from the East’ (can we call them Easterlies already? Or, just ‘wind’?)

The snow was great, actually. One day we got our first ever Red Weather Warning (they only brought them in last year, which might have something to do with it) and the snow stopped me going to work, woo! Then I had to make up the hours later, of course, but it’s the principle of the thing. The only problem with the snow is its fragility. If someone so much as steps on it, or it melts even a little bit, come nightfall it’s transformed into ice, which is a whole different ballgame. (I don’t remember ice being a problem when I was a child. Probably because I weighed about a fifth of what I do now, so falling on my face wasn’t such a big deal).

Still, in between the various Beasts, the garden’s all prepped for the rest of the year. I might have gone slightly overboard on the number of fruit bushes that needed weeding and composting. It might also be that planting a fifty-metre hedge entirely composed of thorns was not my smartest move. Every time I went in with a shovel-full of mulch for the ungrateful thing, it grabbed me by the hair and I had to fight my way free.

The good news is, the newly-reinforced greenhouse has (touchwood) stood up to the storms so far. Mostly because they came from the east and it’s sheltered by the house from that direction. Three years of tending a mighty, spiky hedge to try and keep the westerlies off – we’re kinda elevated, so there’s nothing at all between here and the hills of the west coast but wind – and suddenly it’s all coming from the other direction. Where there is a whole street, nay, village, and trees and high fences and you name it as a barricade and none of it seems to stop the wind a damn, so… yeah. A single hedge. Well, it seemed a good call at the time.

Nothing I planted in the greenhouse has come up yet, however, because it’s too sodding cold. I predict another cold snap, too, because I just got the raised beds planted. Not that it’s all about me, of course, but next door have planted theirs too and therefore we’re doomed. You can set your watch by the weather round here; the heavens open at going-to-work time, school-run time and evening rush hour, with enough kept back for a sudden downpour once enough washing’s been hung on a sunny day. Tis a cunning beast.

Anyway! The garden is now all set up to produce: basil, cabbages, four types of chilli peppers, courgettes and cucumbers, leeks, parsnips, peas, runner beans, swedes, tatties, tomatoes and tomatillos. In the perennial beds, we have rhubarb and borage; in the tubs there are strawberries, blueberries and oh god I still need to pot out and compost the herbs. Fruit bushes and trees: gooseberries, currants of all three colours, goji berries (ha. These guys apparently live in the Himalayas and ‘thrive on cold and windy conditions’. Not so far), raspberries, elderberries, cherries, plums, apples, rowans and a single, rather optimistic pear tree. The hedge might yet do something useful if the hazelnuts and rose-hips and sloes ever get going.

I mention all this so later, when I report on the solitary parsnip that comprises the entire harvest, the contrast will be extra emphasised.

The other thing that happened this spring is, we had a wood-burning stove installed. You know, just in time for it to not be cold enough to need one. Since the garden was a massive grove of feral Leylandii when we moved in, getting rid of the buggers left a colossal pile of logs, so it made sense to make use of them. We thought.

But lo, the guys fitting the wood-burning stove casually pointed out that Leylandii is, apparently, the Wrong Sort of Wood for wood-burning stoves. Too much resin, burns too fast, something something. Let this be a lesson to everyone else to do your homework before forking out; also, if the neighbours offer you cash for something you’re not immediately gonna use, for godsake take the money and run!

Somehow or other, I’ve managed to get nearly to the end of the business year with two whole weeks’ leave in my pocket. This greatly distressed my manager so I had to take this week off. It’s a hard, hard life.

I had so, so many plans it was hard to choose. Build the log-store I’ve been meaning to get around to for a whole year? Write that sequel that’s been popularly demanded? (If you count as ‘popularly’ one person, who was drunk at the time, which I will, dammit). Gut the house? (Now we have a dog – who turns out to be ninety-percent floof by body-weight – it badly needs it. Within approximately three hours of the last time it got done, too). Socialise? Pfft, what even is that?

Alas for all of this, I had an Idea.

Then some more ideas:

Then it kinda snowballed:

Then it got completely out of control. And, somehow, the whole week is gone…

Whoa, it is 2.5 hours till the Bells, and I have no earthy idea how this crept up so suddenly. Not that I’m not kinda glad 2017’s nearly over; if 2016 was the year everyone I knew was bewailing the deaths of artists they loved, this year’s been the year it got a lot closer to home, for a lot of people I love. Bad trend, dude, so I’m already giving 2018 the side-eye.

I can’t even say it’s been an eventful couple of months since the last post, although we did manage to get out a bit. We went to the local wrestling’s tenth anniversary at the Hydro (and had VIP tickets, it turned out, for the blasphemous price of thirty-seven pence apiece) so I got to have Swears screamed at me by thousands as we went up to the no-queueing door, which was… interesting… but it was worth it for a totally awesome night. Later that week, I got taken to see Deep Purple for a very cheap price by someone I didn’t know very well but who turned out to be totally lovely. I spent a lot of time trying to help someone who was going through a very bad relationship; then when we went down to Cambridge for a party and a couple of days’ peace, a bunch of bad news broke and we ended up inheriting a dog for Christmas. Within two hours of getting back, even, so that was a lot of running around even before my Christmas present (seven blueberry bushes) turned out to have arrived a month early and need urgent TLC.

Neither of us have had a dog before, so that’s certainly been an eye-opener. We’re very fortunate that he’s an OAP and as little trouble as a dog could possibly be (except for the separation anxiety. And the fact that he was terrified of the stairs. We ended up taking shifts sleeping on the couch, while I was under the attack of the worst lurgy I’ve had in a decade, so that was just fab, and in the end, though I was half-dead and the G-monster appallingly drunk (so jealous!) we got out the staple-gun and spent the midnight hour decking the stairs with cardboard until dog-breath could be persuaded to come up them and stop barking all the goddamn time already). He’s been here just under a fortnight and already it feels like we’re a proper family or something, so I predict he will stay long enough to break our hearts, and our bank balances with his medical bills, and then pop his poor little clogs, leaving us devastated. Woo, pets.

In the meantime, I fulfilled this year’s goal of writing a short story for every week for the year (if one generously counts poetry and sarcastic articles as short stories). The less said about all the other goals I had for this year the better, but who knows, maybe next year I will get more done. Not as much as I want, of course (until the lurgy, my plans for the Christmas period were to write eight short stories, and possibly a novel, and get a whole raft of drawing done, while somehow also gutting the house, getting fit with dog-breath and insulating the loft. Probably not realistic goals for eight days, but they never are.)

Nevertheless, it would be a small and mean world if one person had the slightest chance of experiencing it all in one lifetime, and I suppose it would be a small and mean lifetime if one had any chance at all of doing everything one wanted to do within it. Though I hope, for anyone reading this, you have a chance of doing all sorts of wonderful things and fulfilling all sorts of wonderful goals in the coming year. Remember, it’s always better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. At least, until the landing.

I’ve spent (what is probably far too much) time working on a wee series of cards that combine two things almost everyone loves – Christmas, and Great Cthulhu, who doesn’t quite ‘get’ Christmas.

Okay, when I say ‘almost everyone’, I mean, ‘almost everyone I know had to have Great Cthulhu explained to them, at which I did not do such a great job’ so it is the most niche of niche-y Christmas cards ever.

Here they are!

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And if for some reason anyone would like to purchase any, here’s the link. Season’s greetings y’all, even if this season is, um, still November at this time. Oops.

Autumn’s pretty much over too! The best laid plans of mice and men, etc. I got a new job, a lot closer to home, and full of lovely people. Stressful as hell, and an awful lot to learn in a short time, but that’s what keeps you young, eh? (She says, looking at the tremendous amount of grey hairs busting out all over).

(I have made a name for myself there, despite it only being a contract job, what with standing up at the end of the first meeting I ever chaired, catching my foot on the table leg and going down like a felled tree, taking the hat-stand with me, and only the other week I got the norovirus that’s doing the rounds, had to bolt out of the meeting I was in the middle of minuting to be sick in the bogs and got sent home in disgrace. Go me!)

Then it was fruit-harvesting season, and a poor crop it was too thanks to the really cold weather, but I have a few dozen gallons of wine on the go which will hopefully be delicious next year. Hard on the heels of that, bad family news on both my side and the G Monster’s, which all hit at the same time. Life, eh.

So it was nice to get away to the Lake District for a well-deserved week off! Shame it rained quite a lot, also I came down with the most horrendous cold (because of course I did) so there was not as much hill-walking as there could have been. There were a huge number of steam trains to have a go on, though, and we had a pint on the steam cruiser on Lake Windermere (the bar is in the – bilges? gunnels? the bottom of the boat, anyway, so it was quite weird, sitting in a nice comfy saloon and watching the top of the water go by at neck height). And we saw some waterfalls and strange creatures and I got to hold a python. Sadly I am far rounder than before, due to staying in the White Hart Inn, which is full of delicious food and a wide variety of beer…

So here is a selection of fairly horrendous photos, almost all taken with the wrong settings.

everything in the Lakes was soaking, even this guyand the weather was really ‘moody’, as seen in this view from the barbut it meant all the waterfalls were really hugewe didn’t even think much of this one, last yearthis is ghyll force (fun fact, force is probably from ‘foss’ which they are called in Icelandwe did get one nice day, though, in Ravenglasswhich also has a steam trainit was bitterly cold, thougheven the trains were all wrapped upbut it was Halloween so everyone had pulled the stops outwhich impressed some more than otherswe also found a strange place where the trees grow only out of rocksand a zoo with a steam trainand a place which did Halloween AND had FOUR steam trains!if i had loads of money, I would do exactly what these guys did with theirsand here is a skull, because that appears to be a Thing with me now 🙂

It’s a self-pubbed book, so it may well not count as a ‘proper’ book, but it’s the right length and it tells a story and everything. Perhaps a bit of a mad story, with monsters and explosions and extremely complicated personal relationships (I am totally stealing this sentence from one of my two kind reviewers) but as they say, for people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they will like!

Hopefully, at least. You can have a gander inside at the link below and decide if it’s your thing or not.

Woo, look at me, I started a new blog sit and it immediately fell on its face by the wayside. Much like when I started a new jogging regime that time, but that’s by the by. At least I was only in a metaphorical ditch, this time around.

So, things that have happened over the summer. First off, I got taken to Wales for my birthday, which is not a particularly long trip and yet one I had never made. For bonus points, we got stranded on the top of Mount Snowdon for HOURS when the tram (yes, we were being lazy, I mean, efficient – and supporting the local tourist trade!) broke down.

Not gonna lie, it got pretty grim. There was nowhere to sit, so we had to eat our pasties standing at a table, and the cider ran out so I was forced to drink local craft ale. The less said about my experience in the gift-shop the better, but lets just say I was rather lighter of pocket when we eventually got back to civilisation.

I will say, however, that I did love the round of applause that one of my fellow passengers got for making it to the very summit of the mountain. It may only have been about a 25 metre hike, in terms of verticality, but he suffered for it and I felt the spontaneous outbreak of love was well-deserved.

I don’t have any photos of that particular event because I felt it would be rude and intrusive. However, here are some photos of pictures drawn from photos of Wales, which is probably rather an unnecessary number of moves from the original:

We went down to a family wedding for the Easter Saturday, which was pretty low key but that was great because I got to talk to absolutely everyone who was there. Sunday, we met this retired couple at breakfast in the B&B and ended up being an hour and a half late setting off, just because the guy was absolutely, charmingly mental. Not only did he make me feel much better about being a gigantic wierdo myself, but I can’t wait to get old and spend my days trolling car salesmen too, now.

We did a wee circuit of the coast, armed with an OS map (in a car. If anyone does this on foot, or by bike, I salute you) on the way to Whithorn, (where my partner apparently dug up human bones with the school, many years ago. Wow, our school never did anything like that). We found an iron-age hill-fort, two lumps we thought were cursuses (cursi?) but turned out to be mottes, a couple of standing stones, a monument to Tarka the Otter, St Finian’s Well, and the Torhouse Stone Circle.

I am many things but a good photographer isn’t one of them, so here are the two least mediocre shots, of Torhouse Stone Circle and an Anglo-Celtic Cross near Thornhill, respectively.

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